Dan Primack at Fortune has most of Brown’s story and pitch. The only thing that’s not in there is the fact that Brown has been itching to do this for at least a year, and has gone back and forth with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong about whether or not he would be doing it with AOL’s participation.

(Update: Brown says AOL has invested in his new fund; he’ll also help manage the AOL investments he made over the last three years.)

(Update 2: Here’s comment from AOL Ventures President Jon Brod: “AOL Ventures, which Mike and I started in 2010, has a high performing portfolio of 27 tech start-ups and remains an important part of AOL. We wish Mike well in his new position and are pleased he will continue to help manage the AOL Ventures fund.”)

The question for Armstrong is whether it makes sense for the company to have a venture arm at all, since the work it does doesn’t seem core to AOL’s mission, and having AOL as a corporate backer seems to be a double-edged sword for a venture fund: Sometimes AOL’s brand helps open doors to pitch meetings, other times it has seemed like an encumbrance.

AllThingsD by Writer

AllThingsD.com is a Web site devoted to news, analysis and opinion on technology, the Internet and media. But it is different from other sites in this space. It is a fusion of different media styles, different topics, different formats and different sources. Read more »